Problems with Parrallel Produce

Child hood is a strange thing. At least for me it was. It shapes so much your who you are and what choice you make later in life. This is an example of the strange upbringing that I had.

When I was young, very young, like three or four. My mom was getting very frustrated with me. She was having the same battle with me that every mother has with their young ones. Why wont he eat his vegetables? But unlike most children there was one vegetable that I loved. I loved to eat broccoli. I ate it with every meal and demanded it when it was not present. This might seem like a good thing at face value, but my mom quickly got sick of broccoli. So she devised a way to get me to eat other types of veggies. With me being young and impressionable and her being devious with a streak of crazy, she decided to tell me that every vegetable was broccoli. This turned out to be surprisingly successful(I guess I wasn't a very intelligent kid) and thus her veggie variety problem was solved.

That is until kindergarten started. In the first few days of kindergarten we started playing a game. It was called name that vegetable. I of course proud of my extensive knowledge of produce shouted my answers with zeal. The teacher held up a plastic carrot and asked, “what is this?”

“Orange broccoli!” I replied.

“Uhhh... and this?” She inquired holding up a plastic cucumber.

“Long broccoli!”

“And this?” A tomato.

“Red broccoli!” I cheered clapping with excitement.

So after taking me aside and some discussion they decided to call my mom into the school office for a chat. They sat her down and explained, “we think your child is special and that he needs extra attention.”

“Why the hell you would think that?” Mom replied.

“Well, we were playing a game a simple game and your son was not able to answer anything correctly.”

“What game?”

“It's a game we play with children to teach them the different types of vegetables.” The teacher explained as my mom started laughing. “We show them plastic models of vegetables and they have to tell us what kind they are. Your son is only able to correctly answer broc- look I don't see what is so funny about this mam.” The teacher finished to my mom's rising laughter.

“I was only trying to get the little bugger to eat his damn vegetables!” Mom explained cackling.

So after a few years of rehabilitation in relation to vegetation I can now correctly answer the question “what type of vegetable is this?” with out immediately responding broccoli. Isn't life grand?